Portal Biotechnologies and Multiply Labs Announce Partnership to Automate Cell Engineering In Cell Therapy Manufacturing

Automating Portal’s cell engineering platform using Multiply Labs’ robotic systems aims to reduce costs and accelerate timelines, in support of cell therapy scalability and accessibility

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Multiply Labs and Portal Biotechnologies announced their collaboration today, combining the efficiency of Multiply Labs’ robotic automation with the differentiated cell engineering capabilities of the Portal platform. This collaboration is an important step forward for cell therapy development and manufacturing with the goal of leveraging automation to accelerate product timelines and reduce costs, helping innovative cell therapies reach more patients.

“Cell therapy manufacturing infrastructure and its associated costs have severely limited the accessibility of cell therapies. Multiply Labs’ automation strategy has the potential to modularize and simplify cell therapy production to ensure greater patient impact. We are very excited to contribute to the Multiply Labs team’s vision by integrating our next generation cell engineering approach with their robotics,” said Armon Sharei, Founder and CEO of Portal.

Portal’s mechanoporation technology has demonstrated the capability to deliver many different types of cargo to a broad range of cell types while preserving normal cell function. By enabling robust multiplexed engineering of cells, this approach can enable a broad range of novel cell therapies. This partnership will add automation support for Portal’s platform and overall approach to intracellular delivery, improving efficiency, throughput, and speed, while reducing the risk of human error. The companies aim to develop a Robotic Mechanoporation Cartridge that will contain Portal’s hardware consumable kit, enabling Multiply Labs’ robotic systems to autonomously operate Portal’s mechanoporation technology.

“We are honored to welcome Portal Biotechnologies into our industry-leading partner ecosystem,” said Fred Parietti, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO of Multiply Labs. “It is crucial that we partner with companies like Portal, who are on the cutting edge of drug discovery and cellular therapeutics, to support their scalability through automation. Together, we are primed to address some of the largest barriers that exist in cell therapy today, ensuring future patients can benefit from the life-saving potential of these treatments.”

Multiply Labs’ automation technology for cell therapy manufacturing is a unique approach that is based on being compatible with the leading GMP-grade instruments, consumables, and reagents. In support of this strategy, Multiply Labs recently published pre-print data demonstrating that automated and manual cell expansion processes are statistically equivalent. This implies that manufacturers can automate their current cell expansion protocols with minimal alterations and reduced regulatory risk.

Many stakeholders in the cell therapy space will benefit from this collaboration by integrating Portal’s cutting-edge solutions while enjoying the advantages of automation, such as cost reduction and increased throughput.

About Portal Biotechnologies:

Portal is a cell engineering platform company focused on enabling next generation cell engineering and cell analytics across research and clinical applications. The company is implementing a simplified approach to intracellular delivery, focused on accelerating advances enabled by the new generation of RNA, gene editing, and AI-driven technologies. Portal’s initial product suite is based on a proprietary mechanical delivery system capable of delivering many different types of cargo to a broad range of cell types. The technology's ability to be used stand-alone or as an integrated component of third-party systems provides a significant opportunity to broadly impact the fields of biological research and cellular therapeutics. For more information, please visit www.portal.bio.

About Multiply Labs

Multiply Labs is a robotics company that provides autonomous manufacturing technology to the pharmaceutical industry. The company develops advanced, cloud-controlled robotic systems that enable the production of individualized drugs at scale. Its customers include some of the largest global organizations in the advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing space. Multiply Labs’ expertise is at the intersection of robotics and biopharma – its team includes mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, computer scientists, software engineers and pharmaceutical scientists. The founding team got in touch because of their shared love of robots at MIT. The company is based in San Francisco, California. For more information, please visit www.multiplylabs.com.